I think it’s about time that I helped "shift some product" as Richard Strange was once told to do by Virgin Records.

If you are remotely interested in the life and times of TV Smith and would like to know more about his infectious tunes, powerful prose and his early journey from pantheresque guitar thief to talented poet then read this guide. It’s all here in TV Smith guidebook. At times it’s cheap and sleazy yet this story is always high on captivation. When it all collapsed for him in the Thatcher decade after getting lost in an exploration in Germany TV wrote “we can do anything”. He believed and slowly knock by knock he achieved. He grew from a one chord punk to a legend whose words echo the voice of real people accross all boundaries. A man who speaks from the heart and never tows the party line. An advert for tenacity, energy and clarity. Now is the time to read of a true hero of our times.

These are indeed TV Times.

“We Can Do Anything.”TV Smith forever Carrying On

…You’ve got the book, next up is the ‘Uncharted Wrecks of Wonder’ TV Smith documentary.

Slaby Witness, Sleaze, the Adverts, TV Smith's Explorers, Party Line, High, Production House, Cheap... the TV Smith story is one of rock's richest, filled with some of the most exhilarating music of the past 30 years. And Your Ticket Out Of Here is the first comprehensively detailed guide to every last note of it.

Well, maybe not the first. The original edition of this book was published back in 1984, within the final edition of the TV Times, the wonderfully chaotic TV Smith fanzine that I had spent the past four years producing at a rate of (almost) one a month. A second edition followed in 1990, sold through the pages of the British Punk Collector fanzine.

But this update completely revises those earlier editions, while adding a complete biography, reviews, and other information. It also revises the original (somewhat confusing) format, to align it with the series of other Armchair Guides that I published through Helter Skelter Publishing a few years ago (the Cure, New Order and the Fall), and which is now relaunching in e-book format.

There are some gaps, that mercifully can be filled by visiting TV's website (TVSmith.com). All the key information is here, however; the record releases, crucial/memorable live shows, and so forth, to continue a tradition that Mick Mercer, reviewing the TV Times in ZigZag, once proclaimed "a true labour of love,"

About the author: Dave Thompson is the author of over 100 books on rock and pop culture, including biographies of David Bowie, Sparks, the Sweet, Kurt Cobain and Depeche Mode. Between 1980-1984 he published the TV Smith fanzine "the TV Times." Trailing TV "from trench to toilet and back again."